The Holder of Immortality
In any City, in any Country, go to any mental institution or halfway house you can get yourself to. At the front desk, ask to see "The Holder of Immortality." If the worker looks at you, shrugs, and returns to what they were doing, you are at the wrong place - try elsewhere. If the worker looks directly into your eyes, you are at the wrong place - turn and run, before he plucks your eyes out of your head. Only if the worker focuses somewhere ''behind ''your eyes, will you know you are in the right place. If this is the case, ask again to shake the worker out of their daze. You will be lead to the back of the institution and shown a short staircase. Follow it up to a round study with windows covering half its spread looking out onto an orchard. It is autumn, and the leaves are brilliantly colored and falling, their vibrance standing in stark contrast to the frail old man who sits behind a desk facing the windows, slowly writing in a book. Upon closer inspection of the man, his dark glasses will inform you of his blindness, his withered, crippled legs of his lameness, and his continued unawareness of your presence of his deafness. His deafness is not complete, however, and he will respond to at least one thing - the question "What have you seen?" If he answers with anything other than "Not, yet, I am almost finished," you will spend the rest of your natural life in that room, as the door vanishes into the stone of the walls around it. If you are fortunate, however, sit patiently and wait for the man to tell you he is finished - the only way to leave this room with the Object you seek is to play by the Holder's rules, and interrupting him before he's ready may get you the Object, but won't get you out of the Holder's study. Eventually, the man will stop writing, close the book, and seal it with blood-red wax and an ornate, gilded seal. He will then pick the book up, and extend it towards you in offering. You must take it from him, but be quick - he is nearly finished, and if the old man expires before you take the book, you won't be able to escape this room. You will, however, have plenty of time to think, read, and write while waiting for someone to come along and spice up your imprisonment. As your hand touches the book, the man, once a mortal, once a Seeker, now a Holder, will breathe his last breath, and the events of his life will flood through your mind, firmly imprinting themselves in their new home. As the door creaks open, you are free to go. The Holder's life story is now in you and in that book, laid out on two canvasses that will withstand the ages, so that all may know his story. The Autobiography is Object 421 of 538. Only in death can you truly live forever.